


Safety Valve

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: CSI: Las Vegas
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-27
Updated: 2010-01-27
Packaged: 2017-10-06 18:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>post-"Overload."  <em>Catherine said they needed to talk: she meant, Gil needed to listen.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Safety Valve

**Author's Note:**

> Beta thanks to Merry and Iulia!
> 
> This story was first posted February 1, 2006.

"Grissom."

Gil looked up to find Catherine standing in the doorway of his office; before he said a word, she stepped inside, closing the door. As she settled into the chair in front of his desk, she said, "We need to talk." Her tone was firm, but she was looking away: to her right, then down at her hands in her lap, and then, as if she suddenly realized what she was doing, up to meet his gaze.

"All right," he said slowly. Catherine said they needed to talk: she meant, Gil needed to listen.

Catherine held his gaze. He could see her steeling herself, but he thought that she'd already braced to do this well before she'd come in. Whatever she was about to say, she was going to say it, and take the consequences. In a calm, clinical voice, she reported, "When Nick was nine years old, he was abused by a person in a position of trust."

Gil opened his mouth. Closed it. Catherine glanced away, which meant he could, just long enough to find words. "Catherine, the statute of limitations would have expired when Nick turned twenty-five. There's nothing we can do."

Catherine's eyes were wide, startled, when they met his again: she hadn't been thinking of prosecution, he realized. Well, of course she hadn't. She knew the statute of limitations on child abuse as well as he did. "I thought you should know," she said, showing so much deference to his position as to leave out the _you idiot_. "As Nick's supervisor. It's an issue he's sensitive to. Professionally."

Gil nodded slowly, forcing himself to think about it in an orderly fashion, not to consider the handful of things he'd observed that this explained, the things it suggested he should watch for, and not just in the sense of professional sensitivity. He was Nick's boss; he needed to think of this like Nick's boss. "Cases involving children, then--especially pre-adolescents--who are..." and the hesitation was fractional, but enough to let Catherine know that he grasped that the word _sexually_ was being omitted, in token respect of Nick's privacy: she wouldn't be this nervous about revealing a history of strictly physical abuse, and it explained the staggering number of swabs Nick had logged for DNA analysis during the last case he'd investigated with her. "Abused. By persons in positions of trust."

Catherine nodded crisply. "I thought someone other than me should be keeping an eye out."

"Thank you," Gil said, allowing his gaze to drift down to his computer screen, though he didn't register the words. "I will."

Someone in a position of trust: family members were most common, and Nick had six older siblings, two parents, countless aunts, uncles, and cousins. But he spoke of them all with an even-handed fondness--unless there was one he never mentioned, and how would they know?

"You want to get a drink?"

Gil glanced at the time: past end of shift, and Catherine should have been hurrying home, not still sitting in his office. "No," he said absently. "Thanks."

Catherine likely knew more than she'd told him; it was obvious that this was a compromise she'd arrived at, between keeping Nick's secret and--

Gil couldn't think rationally about it at all for a moment, thinking that Nick regarded this as a secret, a shame that was his and not the perpetrator's, that someone had hurt Nick when he was _nine years_\--

"You wanna hit somebody?"

Gil looked up, startled, at Catherine, who was still sitting in his office, watching him. He blinked, running back her questions, and realized that of course she wanted to know if he wanted a drink, wanted to hit someone. She doubtless wanted both of those things herself. Lindsey would be turning nine soon, and she and Nick had closed the Buckley case days ago. Nick must have told her during the investigation, and she must have been carrying this around since then, trying to decide if she dared to tell anyone, as Nick had dared to tell her.

"Yes," he said, and gave her a wry smile. "But it was twenty-one years ago, and in another state." _And anyway, the wench is dead_. Well, they could all devoutly hope. "But I haven't done any time on the firing range in weeks."

Catherine smiled back. "I like the way you think."

 


End file.
